Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Twyla Tharp On Her New Bob Dylan Musical

The New York Post has an interesting interview with director-choreographer Twyla Tharp, who is mounting her followup to the Billy Joel musical Movin' Out in San Diego. Based on songs by Bob Dylan, it has more of a spoken plot than the all-dancing Billy Joel extravaganza. (I wasn't a big fan of Movin' Out, though I like Joel -- seeing the secon string cast on a matinee surely didn't help.) The interview has some interesting tidbits, such as the fact that Dylan approached Tharp with the idea. And I love this casual claim:

The first thing she did was listen to [his songs] — all 1,000 of them, covering his youthful folk period, his heavy rocker middle-age, his Christian revival maturity. "As is my wont, I did my research," Tharp says. "I listened to all the recordings and I read everything about Bob I could find."

Please. If Tharp listened to every song Dylan recorded AND everything written on him, she'd still be at home doing her research. You could spend YEARS reading everything that's been written on Dylan.

3 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Somehow, Dylan just seems far less likely a source for a musical like this. Even a revue would be tough -- his stamp on the songs is so strong. It's not like the Beatles, where their tunes are standards. A Dylan song is usually best heard by Dylan.